KBFreeRange

Photos and blueprints available. Contact me at kbarnes@bainbridgedistillers.com, or 206-855-7900, text 206-718-3628.

We are increasing capacity. Our new 500 gallon Vendome all-copper batch still will arrive in mid-November. We have recently added 2 new 500 gallon Vendome fermenters, bringing our total to 5, and increased out steam generation to 2.5 million BTUs.

250 GALLON VENDOME ALL-COPPER BATCH STILL, AGITATOR, DOUBLER FOR SALE. - 250 Gallon VENDOME All-Copper Batch Still, steam jacketed, 17" Copper Column w/4 bubble trays and sight ports, Dephlegmator, sight port for still body, copper man-way hatch, copper agitator mounts and support. $73,000 - Agitator, BRAUN 230v 3-Phase with shaft, impellers . $5,000 - 50 Gallon VENDOME All-Copper Doubler, steam jacketed with sight port. $12,000 The still and doubler are 3 years old, the agitator is 2 years old. All have been meticulously maintained and are in PERFECT working order. We will sell the doubler separately, but the still and agitator need to stay together. Equipment will be available mid-November 2012. Contact: Keith Barnes Bainbridge Organic Distillers 206-855-7900 kbarnes@bainbridgedistillers.com

250 GALLON VENDOME ALL-COPPER BATCH STILL, AGITATOR, DOUBLER FOR SALE. - 250 Gallon VENDOME All-Copper Batch Still, steam jacketed, 17" Copper Column w/4 bubble trays and sight ports, Dephlegmator, sight port for still body, copper man-way hatch, copper agitator mounts and support. $73,000 - Agitator, BRAUN 230v 3-Phase with shaft, impellers . $5,000 - 50 Gallon VENDOME All-Copper Doubler, steam jacketed with sight port. $12,000 The still and doubler are 3 years old, the agitator is 2 years old. All have been meticulously maintained and are in PERFECT working order. We will sell the doubler separately, but the still and agitator need to stay together. Equipment will be available mid-November 2012. Contact: Keith Barnes Bainbridge Organic Distillers 206-855-7900

Nick, If you are using the online method of submission your formula and statement of process will need to be approved by Formulas Online before you can submit for your label approval. The documents are tricky, and the site is engineered to run on Explorer 7, which may render some of the functions you are trying to perform during correction of your documentation difficult to do. Once you get your formula approved by Formulas Online you can submit your label materials for approval by COLAs Online. Our experience has not been that this takes a few days, rather 3-4 weeks for each submission. TTB promises an initial response within 45 days. All in all it takes almost the same amount of time to file via mail, in my opinion.

If you are using unmalted grain running grain-in is pretty much a given. The key is grind size and agitation during cooking, fermentation and distillation. All of your vessels need to have mixers or agitators that make sure that the small grain particles (1/64th") do not sink to the bottom of the vessel. In the cases of cooking and distillation this could cause scorching. In the case of fermentation it could cause a big mess if the CO2 given off during fermentation gets trapped beneath the grain that would settle to the bottom of the fermenter. When a submerged CO2 bubble pops, there's a hell of a mess to clean up.

I'm not sure what you mean by drain. Our vapor line goes from the dephlegmator to the bottom of the gin basket, and then out the top/side of the basket and into the condenser. There's a water line that's tapped into the vapor line under the basket, is this what you're referring to?

We are distilling through a Vendome gin basket, no maceration prior to distillation.

We have distilled our first batches or gin and notice that the distillate has a slight yellowish cast to it. We are using whole botanicals, dried. Has anyone ever experienced this before? Anyone have a solution or remedy?

If you use any of the enzymes produced through propagation of aspergillis niger (black mold) then you are using "old technology" whether you know it or not. The process for cultivating aspergillis niger to the ends of harvesting elements like citric acid and many food processing enzymes in common use until the 60s dates back to 1917. Gluco and alpha amylases are both included in this group. The use of enzymes that are the production of cultivating genetically modified organisms may be marginally more effective for distillation, but the use of these materials is banned for food production in much of the world and its biological waste stream is unsupervised. And because bio-tech companies only conduct testing on their products FOR THAT PRODUCT'S SPECIFIED PURPOSE the impacts of these elements entering the environment are unknown. After all, Dupont has deflected law suits for decades by stating that Teflon in not intended to be ingested and thus when it winds up in people's bodies through contact with everything from Telfon coated pans, Goretex coated garments and Hurculon coated sofas they are not at fault. Not all technologies are bad, most are not, but it pays to delve as deep as you have the time to, as what you make will come into contact with folks in an indiscriminate way, and you can't count on suppliers to disclose all skeletons in their closets. The "New Tech" guys that bio engineer seeds seem to forget the Irish Potato famine that we learned about in school. Seems that having genetically identical seed stock has its risks, not to mention that to get them to grow you have to buy into a whole program complete with pesticides and herbicides and soil conditioners, all of which have been the beneficiary of the same kind of one dimensional, shoddy testing as Telfon. We all should be scared that an handful of bio-ag companies control more than 50% of all germplasm (seed stock) in the world. Labor saving devices are great, and I'm all in favor, but nature's technology is nothing to sneeze at. We can't create anything really new, only modify what exists to meet our ends, usually with no idea of the outcome and with no commitment to take care of the aftermath if there is one. Wow! Too serious a conversation for a posting board, so my apologies! On a more basic note, I collect vintage whiskey, have a few bottles even dating back to the late 1870s. Lots from the teens on through the 40s and 50s. Some of it, especially pre-war bourbon, is unbelievably good. I'm working to discover the old technology approach to the making of these whiskeys. If I can figure that out then we'll really have something. I guess that in the end I'm a believer in making the most informed decisions that you can, and for trying to maintain a common sense balance between profit and making the most responsible decisions possible. KB

My apologies to any that were put off by my "those that don't get it" comment. I too run a distillery as a business. I am passionate about what we do, and how we do it, but it's a business and it needs to meet certain performance goals for it to remain viable. We are a Certified Organic Distillery, so we get questions every day about how and why we do things. Many of those questions revolve around doing things "the new way" VS "the old way". Don't get me wrong, I'm not some anachronistic character that condemns all that is new, but we do look at all viable solutions to how we do business and choose what feels right for us ethically, and what fits within our organic certification. Going organic, and using only organic grains was a no-brainer for us. Yes, these grains are twice the cost of conventional, but we avoid supporting a form of agriculture that dumps millions of tons of pesticides and herbicides into the ground and onto the food that people will eat. The fact that distillate made using conventional grains has no pesticide/herbicide residue in it doesn't enter into it. Buying grain that is produced by polluting the environment is not a viable long-term business option for us. It delivers cheaper grain in the short term, but promotes the development of stronger and more radical chemicals to control the weeds/pests as they grow resistant to the poisons we apply today. It has outcomes that will need to be paid in the future. My comment regarding E. coli was in reference to the use of this bacteria, and other biologic organisms, to create proteins and enzymes through recombinant DNA manipulation, and the use "sewage sludge" as a fertilizer for foods grown for human consumption. The organic rules are pretty simple on this - if it grows on poop, or was grown using poop, it's off limits. Don't confuse sewage sludge (poop) with the use of sterilized manure - they are two very different things. Some of these rules - don't put poison on your food, don't put poop in your mouth - would seem to be easy to grasp, yet technology tells us that now they are OK, or at lest they are OK when they tested it in the lab under a set of conditions that would be impossible to recreate anywhere other than in a lab. Not to go on and on... I took the image of the plow and mules as a symbol of not discounting traditional methods just because they are old. While I don't have plans to plant and harvest any of our organic grain by horse and plow, it is an interesting experiment to see what's possible to achieve using older technology, and it makes a statement about a company's overall approach to business. It makes a hell of a PR opportunity as well, which would be a positive to any business, organic or conventional. For every decision we make there are many options and outcomes, some easy to see and some not to easy to see. Sometimes we do things because they just "feel right", even if they are more expensive. Business rules would probably demand that small distillers make vodka using NGS from a big ag company because it makes the business more profitable and conserves resources. I am certain that people could buy spirits made in China for a fraction of what we (small distillers) sell them for, probably for less than what we can MAKE them for. Buying local, making things in small batches, family businesses, doing it "by hand", these are all ideas that are not new and many of them fly in the face of making good business sense. But these are the things that set us all apart from the Smirnoffs and contracted refractories or the world, and that's why people want to support us. KB

Christian, I love it! You're taking the no-GMO, no-Monsanto, no-eColi-bred processing aids to its most basic expression. More power to you! There will always be those that "don't get" this level of attention to detail, or involvement in all aspects of the business for that matter, but rest assured that others will, and they'll be your best customers. Profit margins are what you determine them to be, efficiencies are what you program them to be, and there are plenty of folks that are willing to pay (more) for products made in a way that has real benefits and integrity.

Hopefully my response here won't anger anyone, but this is an interesting and complex issue here in Washington State, and elsewhere. As a distiller in Washington State I am familiar with these laws, what they allow and maybe more interestingly, how MOST consumers perceive what we put on our labels. Just to be clear, from reading both the blog referenced and the topic in general, the 51% local Washington ingredients provision is applied PER PRODUCT, not when viewed against the entire production of the distillery as a whole. So a craft distillery in Washington State will not be making any rum unless at least 51% of the base ag produce is grown in Washington State. Maybe this will change as the legislature becomes more familiar with local distilleries and their needs. We'll see. Regarding the topic in general, the "craft" designation as defined by the state of Washington seems to be the product of the legislature's lack of understanding the DSP processes and where the lines should be drawn, and some "distiller's" desires to produce products that will be sold under less that 100% transparent conditions. This is my opinion only, but a craft distillery might be more accurately described as one that "distills from raw agricultural produce the products that are sold under its brand or identity". Buying NGS from ANY source would seem to be a factor for disqualification in using the craft designation. If our small industry is to survive in the long term we need to adopt a policy of honesty and transparency that allows the buying public and our trade partners to know exactly what they are getting from us and what we did to produce it. When a producer makes the statement on their label "distilled from 100% Neutral Grain Spirits" and they have the word "distillery" in their name the inference is that we they were the ones doing the distilling. I have been to many small distilleries, seen the bulk totes out in the back and never heard the proprietors mention once that the base for all of their products has been manufactured by ADM of a similar company. It is base deception. This is not to say that the products that are produced by companies that use bulk NGS as a base are lacking quality or viability. They certainly are not, and there are many absolutely delicious and finely crafted products that have their start as bulk NGS. There needs to be some rules on the language allowed on the packaging of these products, and a dedication on the part of producers to be honest about what they are doing. Allowing bulk based products to live under the "craft" banner, or falsely allowing that halo to shine on them, runs the risk of consumers perceiving all craft products as being somewhat faked and less than genuine.

The real issue is that the yeast you select for vodka will create a light flavor profile (few proteins, fatty acids, esters) and the yeast that you use for whiskey will create a very robust flavor profile. Distillation proof isn't the key issue, since these products would most likely want to be "recognizable" as vodka and whiskey, respectively.

Hey Chuck, I laughed out loud when I got to the part of your response where you called it like it is - bullshit. I've seen many a scathing review of well established whisk(e)ys in the past, and they aren't limited to big guys or little guys - only guys that are putting bad stuff in bottles. The small batch distilling "industry" is in its infancy, and like with any other youngster, enthusiasts (and others) are game to hang a finger-painted masterpiece on their fridge with pride, warranted or not. We should all be willing to call it as it is, without having to make a statement that we don't appreciate the hard work that goes into making it. As we all should know, making it good isn't easy, and at least the habit or putting bad whisk(e)y into sherry and port barrels for a few years or more to cover up the flaws hasn't caught favor here. As for us out our here distilling small-batch on our island in the Puget Sound, we'll keep on grinding, mashing and percolating until we feel that the product is as good as it can possible be. I expect that as we go on and our standards get ever higher and we'll always be striving to reach higher. And, oh yah, keep up the good work John and Chuck! We appreciate it!